


The Greatest Fun

by chainofclovers



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 14:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: She never shares as much as she might, but she says a lot more than she used to. And she’s pretty sure Frankie, as perpetually distracted as she is, listens far more carefully than she lets on.





	The Greatest Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bristler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bristler/gifts).

> Over a year ago, tumblr/ao3 user lilbexi posted about how she'd noticed that Grace and Frankie have G and F mugs in their house, and I kind of [joyfully freaked out about it in the tags](https://chainofclovers.tumblr.com/post/171706700628/am-i-the-only-who-finds-this-adorable). Then I [couldn't stop thinking about it](https://chainofclovers.tumblr.com/post/186148197802/me-my-brain-self-this-is-your-biweekly) and finally [decided to write the dang story](https://chainofclovers.tumblr.com/post/186775240173/ugh-so-im-actually-writing-this-im-really).
> 
> This story spans Season 2-5 canon, and expands from there.
> 
> The title is a fragment of a line from "Alone Again, Or." The song is originally by the band Love, though the Calexico cover is the one I know best. "Yeah, I heard a funny thing / Somebody said to me / You know that I could be in love, with almost everyone / I think that people are the greatest fun / And I will be alone again tonight, my dear." Ahhhhh! Please do listen to the whole song for maximum Grace-and-Frankie-have-bad-timing feelings.
> 
> This story is for bristler, my dearest love and hands down all-time favorite mug-sharing person. <3333

_Well, all those people, they think they got it made_  
_But I wouldn't buy, sell, borrow, or trade_  
_Anything I have to be like one of them_  
_I'd rather start all over again_

—Neil Young, from “Motion Pictures (For Carrie)”

Now that the rift between her and Janet is official, it seems inevitable. Grace didn’t mean to change so much—so much that she can’t even pretend to enjoy her old friends’ company, pastimes, preoccupations—but she has. Living with Frankie has made her different. She wonders how much longer she might have bitten her tongue, uncomfortable but passive, if Frankie hadn’t come up in conversation. She’ll never know. All she knows is that insulting Frankie was the final straw. 

On the day it happens, Grace doesn’t spend much time reliving her fight with Janet. She spends more time thinking about what came after, when she stood in the parking lot with Frankie. She hears Frankie ask her if she wants to talk about what happened. She hears her own response: _I love you for that question_. 

As much as Grace appreciates Frankie’s willingness to listen, she doesn’t want to talk right away. But in the days that follow, she does. She’s been giving into that invitation of Frankie’s more and more. She never shares as much as she might, but she says a lot more than she used to. And she’s pretty sure Frankie, as perpetually distracted as she is, listens far more carefully than she lets on. 

A couple weeks after Grace cuts ties with the country club crowd, a package arrives on their doorstep with both their names on the label and Arlene’s return address in the corner. Grace waits till after dinner, when they’re both home, to open it. Frankie loves presents, but she seems cautious about this one. They stand together at the kitchen island, Frankie fidgeting with anticipation in spite of herself. Grace decisively slices the packing tape with scissors, lifts the cardboard flaps. There’s a note on top: 

_Dear Grace and Frankie,_

_As far as I know, you didn’t have a housewarming when you moved in together. Best wishes for your friendship and a happy home._

_~Arlene_

“Oh,” Grace says. She sets the note in front of Frankie. “She’s a class act.”

Frankie barely glances at it. She moves onto the box instead, aghast at the layers of packing peanuts. “She’s an environmental nightmare.” 

Grace rolls her eyes. “Maybe they’re dissolvable.” She digs past the peanuts and pulls out two white boxes, hands one to Frankie to open. Each box contains a monogrammed initial mug with a floral motif, one with a “G” in a large purple serif, one with an “F” in green. 

Without realizing it, Grace has given Frankie the G mug to open. Instinctively, they trade so they each hold their own letter. 

“Just our style,” Frankie says dryly. 

Grace chuckles. “Right, because _our style_ is a concept that exists in the world.”

Frankie sets her mug on the counter and takes a packing peanut over to the sink. She turns on the faucet, holds the peanut up to the stream. “Not dissolvable,” she reports. She takes the box of peanuts and stores it in a hall closet, calling “Too late for Reduce, so I guess it’s on to Reuse” as she walks away. 

Grace washes and dries the new mugs and wedges them on the shelf between the cookbooks and the glass pitcher. That night, when she and Frankie end up side by side on the couch with wine, half watching TV, half distracted by their phones, she sees an Instagram post from Arlene and abruptly gets up to grab a thank you note and pen from her desk. She saves half the real estate on the card for Frankie, and promptly regrets it, because Frankie makes her hold her hand in a peace sign for five minutes while she draws the pose, the sketch taking most of the card’s empty space. “Hey,” Frankie says after Grace sighs dramatically one too many times. “I just want Arlene to know we’re cool now.” She looks up from her drawing. “For your sake,” she adds. “You know. Smooth sailing.” Whatever that means. 

—

The mugs are more patient than they are. Frankie thinks of the F mug as a best self, a concept she’s never known how to achieve with the self she carries around with her. At least she’s pretty sure Grace has no idea either. The mugs, on the other hand—they sit side by side without complaint. They look nice together, even though they were foisted onto the same household without any say in the matter. They never seem to wonder about the other letters of the alphabet left behind at the store, scattered into other homes and workplaces.

For weeks after their arrival, the mugs stay on the shelf. But there’s a morning when Grace snipes about everything—the messy kitchen, the sound of Frankie pouring cereal into her bowl, unresponsive loan officers, anxiety over the vibrator prototyping process, the sound of Frankie pouring almond milk over her cereal. Frankie abandons her breakfast long enough to take the G mug off the shelf and pour herself a cup of coffee from a pot that’s just finished brewing. She parks herself in Grace’s personal space and loudly slurps her first sip before toning it down—no point in annoying herself in the process of annoying Grace. When Grace finally looks at her—in spite of herself, Frankie can tell—she notices Frankie’s using the wrong mug and flashes a half smile. “Oh good,” she says, the nonchalant tone absolutely intended to get a rise out of Frankie, and it works. “Coffee’s ready.” Frankie watches her walk to the shelf in no particular hurry. She takes the F mug down and fills it. When she sits back down and starts to drink, Frankie notices her rotate the mug so the F is visible to them both.

They sip in silence, like better selves.

— 

The morning Frankie moves to Santa Fe, Grace stands ungrounded in the kitchen as soon as she’s gone. The stress of Frankie and Jacob’s late start evaporates, replaced by nothing at all. Even living in the reality of the first moments of Frankie’s absence, Grace can’t force herself to imagine her loneliness as anything but finite, is afraid of what she’ll do if that has to change. She can imagine measuring her solitude only in hours and hours, days and days. 

But even thinking small, thinking in countable units, Grace doesn’t want to be here. She pulls the F mug from the shelf and makes a haphazard screwdriver, heavy on the vodka. She downs it standing at the sink, stays there to pour and drink another and another and another, drinks until everything is blurred, and even then she sees the Frankie of a few days ago packing up her kitchen things, picking up their mugs and setting them down again, nestling them even closer together on the shelf. “They belong together,” Frankie had said, teary-eyed, and Grace couldn’t respond.

She’s almost as drunk as she promised herself she’d never get, after Phil, after the bender, after she hurt Frankie so badly. But she can’t hurt someone who’s not here. She won’t break the promise. 

_Fuck you, Frankie_, thinks Grace. They never talked about it, but somewhere around the time they established Vybrant, Grace started to believe everything in her life had turned out okay. The men she and Frankie dated, their little spats with each other, the indignity of aging in front of their families—none of it mattered, so long as she and Frankie lived together, so long as they were friends, so long as they had the shared vision of Vybrant linking them together. That was the most important thing, her secret key to happiness. She could coast on everything else. And now she’s halted and alone and angrier than she’s ever been. More hurt than she’s ever been. When Robert left, he destroyed an image. When Frankie decided to leave, she—well, Grace won’t let herself be destroyed, but the risk is there. 

She wants to hurl Frankie’s mug into the sink, watch it split into countless pieces. She’s about to do it when a sudden image flashes across her vision, seems to hover between herself and the circular drain. She sees herself saving shards from the disposall, slicing cuts into her fingers and palms. Sees her own blood. 

She sets the mug down gently. Washes her hands though they aren’t unclean. Texts Frankie, though when she was sober she’d told herself she’d wait a day. 

_Be safe._

The first days pass, each containing chipper updates from Frankie on the road, then Frankie exploring the new house. She sends sun-drenched photos, emoji riddles, sentences with exclamation points the only punctuation. Grace waits for _I miss you_, waits for _What are you doing right now?_

When she stops waiting, and starts to think of an absence measurable in years, or even the immeasurable forever, she calls Nick. By the time Frankie misses her, and starts asking questions and wanting answers, Frankie isn’t the only one who’s someplace far away.

—

The first night at Walden Villas is strange. Frankie’s hardly new to adaptation, but she’s certain this place won’t feel more normal over time. Most of her and Grace’s stuff is here in the new apartment, crammed into overly small spaces in an unnatural configuration. “All the comforts of home,” Bud said this morning, peering over the top of a massive cardboard box. At the time, Frankie wondered why they didn’t exchange one of their knowing mother-son glances, this time to acknowledge the gift Frankie’s trying to give Grace: a stable place in an increasingly unsteady world. 

Tonight Frankie keeps looking at Grace, who’s spent at least thirty minutes sitting on a couch that used to face the ocean. Now her view is a white wall, the paint suspiciously, depressingly fresh, like it needed it after whatever happened here before they moved in. 

Frankie’s nearby—in this apartment, nearby is the greatest achievable distance—and when she isn’t stealing glances she’s rummaging through boxes in the partial kitchen. It’s a bad sign that Grace hasn’t looked over to find and glare at the source of the noise, hasn’t asked in a flat tone why Frankie would bother to unpack the kitchen when they aren’t even supposed to cook. 

(“And why would you want to,” their guide chirped when Grace asked about cooking during their introductory tour, “when you’ll have three meals a day served by a gourmet chef?” Frankie was standing close enough to feel Grace flinch. “Family style,” the staffer added, making it worse. Anger flared in Frankie then. How could Brianna and Mallory choose this place for their mother? “We’re all family here.”)

At this point, Frankie would welcome a little bitterness and sarcasm, even directed at her. It’s spooky, living without that sharpness. In the days leading up to the move, Grace was quick to agree and smooth and brush aside things she used to pick over, almost like she wanted to speed up the move Frankie dreaded. What’s done is done, but even now that they’re here, Frankie wants to talk about what happened. She wants to talk about the days they spent packing up the beach house, the little sparks of insight that told her they were doing the wrong thing, that they didn’t have the full picture. She’s tried again tonight, and Grace has shut down the conversation once again. “It’s okay,” she says every time Frankie tries to suggest things might not be okay. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And now she’s sitting in front of a blank wall, no phone or book or drink to distract her, and Frankie has gone to look for their mugs.

Frankie thinks Grace must be in worse pain than she lets on, must be afraid enough of hurting herself that it really was the right choice to leave home. Before they moved, Frankie had wanted to suggest that Grace could move her bedroom to the first floor of the beach house, that they could attach a stability bar to the shower. Now it’s too late for small measures; that might be a good thing, even if Frankie’s going to suffer here. Frankie imagines Grace injured and hospitalized because Frankie tried to band-aid the beach house instead of taking her somewhere safe. She imagines Grace alone all night in a hospital bed because she wouldn’t want Nick there and wouldn’t want Frankie there either. Or else they wouldn’t be allowed in. Either way, Grace would be alone all night. The image is so vivid it makes her nauseous, and in the moment her stomach turns, she finds the mugs lying in a shoe box inside another larger box, nestled in the packing peanuts in which they arrived.

The tea kettle seems a bit too much of a rebellion for the first night, so Frankie risks alien frequencies and heats water in the microwave, tosses a Tension Tamer tea bag in each mug. When the tea is ready, she sits down next to Grace. They always drink out of each other’s mugs, have done so countless times, but tonight Frankie places the G mug in front of Grace. _There you are._ Holds onto the F mug. _Here I am._

“Thanks,” Grace says. She picks up the mug, at least. Shows interest in taking a sip.

“I’m always on your side,” says Frankie. 

Grace looks at her and smiles faintly. Her eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, like she’s looking for something in Frankie’s eyes and can’t tell if it’s there. “Thanks,” Grace says again. She takes a shaky breath. “You too.” 

— 

On her first day of elementary school, fear of eating alone was the only thing that made Grace brave enough to claim an empty seat at a table full of loud, boisterous kids who already knew how to have fun. She never gave up that seat; for years she used the same method to pick her friends, surrounding herself with people who already knew how to do life. 

In hindsight, it’s funny that she broke the pattern with Frankie. When they met, Frankie seemed to know exactly who she was. Frankie ate with gusto from the buffet of life, but Grace didn’t want anything to do with her. She’d already chosen differently too many times. She and Frankie couldn’t become friends until Frankie was as lost as she was, and their connection is the great anomaly of Grace’s entire life. And the best part. She hasn’t forgotten what Babe told her.

Nick knows how he wants to live his life, and that makes it all the more exhausting for Grace to spend days explaining why she has to divorce him. Nick’s devastated, so much so that he offers to share her with Frankie. He doesn’t mean it to sound so transactional; he can’t help it—he loves her, but knows only the language of entity. Besides, in the first weeks of Grace and Nick’s marriage, Frankie kept suggesting something similar. Both Nick and Frankie have offered, over and over, to change for Grace, to be more flexible, to let a best friendship and a marriage erode into the messiness they all know lurks beneath the surface. 

But Grace refuses to let them change for a person who didn’t know how to eat lunch alone, who started drinking because she didn’t know how to exist at a party, who couldn’t fathom the alternative to a life with a husband and children, who was rightfully proud of her success in business but botched its legacy. 

When she has Nick convinced it’s really over, she returns to living full-time at the beach house. Grace thought Say Grace and Vybrant had trained the shyness out of her, but in her first days back home she’s as shy as that first grader in the cafeteria, that freshman at the sorority mixer. She cooks small meals for herself, cleans up right away, speaks only when spoken to. She feels like a guest with an ambiguous host. She could lose it all in an instant. She wonders if she’s supposed to be alone. When she has the thought, nothing in her gut tells her she’s wrong.

When she and Frankie moved to Walden Villas, Frankie did it for Grace’s fragile body and Grace did it for Frankie’s fragile brain, and when they realized their mistakes they reclaimed Grace’s right to fuck up her knee in a multi-story house, reclaimed Frankie’s right to meander. Taking back their house was more fun than breaking into Sheree’s garage. More fun, even, than designing a vibrator. But now Grace isn’t sleeping, is timid and tired and all wrong, and every trek upstairs makes her feel 800 years old. And she feels like she’s losing her mind, too, because nothing’s where it used to be. The coffee maker sits on a different countertop, the coats have changed closets, there’s something off about the stack of towels in the linen closet. She keeps reaching into the refrigerator blind, hand poised to find the handle of the Brita pitcher where it’s supposed to be. It’s never there anymore—sometimes Frankie puts it on the bottom shelf, just one row beneath its old second-shelf home. Sometimes she leaves it on the counter. 

As if the moved and missing items weren’t bad enough, she keeps finding things Frankie must have unearthed in her absence, including a stack of monogrammed hand towels Grace received from her mother for her first wedding and didn’t know she still owned. She’d hardly used them; they’re stiff with age but still neatly stitched: the little _g_ for Grace and _p_ for Pauline on either side of the enormous and intricate _H_ for Hanson, for thank-God-my-oldest-daughter-finally-has-a-goddamn-Husband.

Grace doesn’t complain about any of it. She says nothing to Frankie about what she’s lost. She says nothing about what she’s found. She doesn’t say anything about the evidence of what happened to Frankie when Grace tried to leave her for Nick. The F mug sits on its usual shelf, but the G mug is gone. Frankie’s being so nice. She’s giving Grace lots of space, makes gentle offers to run errands together, smiles at her when she enters the room. But at night, Grace lies awake and imagines Frankie smashing the mug against a wall. Was it satisfying when she shattered? Did Frankie sweep up the pieces right away? Did she cry when she shut the lid on the trash can, or was she perfectly composed? 

—

All day, Frankie looked forward to a late night painting in her studio. She craves bright colors, buoyant music, time it’s okay to spend alone, time she’s supposed to be quiet. But when she gets there, the colors don’t lift her, and the music doesn’t reach all the way in. When Grace knocks twice, the sound so recognizable it doesn’t startle, Frankie’s already given up and is cleaning her paintbrushes in the sink. 

“Come in!” Frankie shouts. Her voice is a little hoarse.

When Grace walks into the studio, Frankie discovers it’s possible for relief and fear to heighten simultaneously. She’s been so grateful Grace has come back, and so terrified that she hasn’t come all the way back, that they’ll never regain the good thing they had before. Grace wears a thick cream-colored cardigan over pink pajamas. She looks bleary-eyed, but not far away. She looks like she’s right here. Relief. And like she’s miserable. Fear.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Grace says.

“Not an interruption.” Frankie keeps her voice light, though it’s difficult—she hasn’t spoken to another living soul in hours. “Just finished cleaning my brushes.” The music is too loud now that she has company, and she dries her hands and turns the stereo off. It’s immediately too quiet. “Cup of tea?”

A couple months back, Frankie set up a little sideboard with an electric kettle, a few boxes of tea, a just-in-case pint of whiskey (still mostly full), honey in a glass jar (half-empty now). She keeps part of her pot stash in a little wooden box carved with butterflies. It’s a good setup for holing up in her own space and avoiding the empty house. The memories in its echoes.

“Oh!” Grace says. Frankie follows her eyes to the G mug, sitting in front of two other mugs at the sideboard. 

Frankie smiles, sheepish. “I might’ve missed you a little.” 

“You didn’t smash it.” 

“No.” It’s not that she didn’t want to, especially at first, when Grace moved out to live with Nick even though it didn’t seem like she wanted to. But she’d stopped herself from giving into the impulse; she knew she’d regret it the moment she destroyed it. Instead of throwing the mug against a hard surface, she did the opposite. She drank out of it every day Grace was gone. Dwelled in it. “You can drink your tea out of it.”

Grace dips her chin toward her chest. “I haven’t slept since I got back. Three weeks of just—naps.” 

“Here,” Frankie says. “Sit down on the couch.” 

Frankie takes in more of Grace as she makes her way to the couch. Her hair’s a little messy, like she’s just left her bed. She has her phone in her hand. Grace sighs when she sits down, posture still perfect. She closes her eyes, and Frankie remembers when Grace slept here the night after the rat. Remembers photographing her in the morning, and how Grace did nothing to stop her. 

The bubbling of the tea kettle rumbles into the quiet, makes it a little more palatable. While Frankie waits for the water to boil, she turns out the overhead light but leaves a lamp on. She returns to her sideboard and holds up the box of Sleepytime tea with the little night-capped bear snoozing in an easy chair. “Look, Grace,” she says. “This is about to be you.” That earns her a faint smile. She skips the whiskey, but doesn’t skimp on the honey. When the tea is ready, she takes Grace’s phone out of her hand and places it on the coffee table, just out of reach. She hands off the tea, takes Grace’s glasses from her face, lays a blanket over Grace’s legs, and sits down next to her. Bites her tongue so Grace has a quiet place to drink. Grace gets through about half of the tea before her eyelids get heavy. Frankie holds out her hand, eyebrows raised to ask if Grace is done. Grace nods, and Frankie takes the tea away. She pulls out a throw pillow from her side of the couch and puts it on her lap. 

“What if I fall asleep?” Grace asks as she lies down on her side, facing away from Frankie with her head on the pillow.

Frankie frowns. “Well, that’d be good, wouldn’t it?”

“You’ll be trapped,” Grace says, muffled by the pillow.

“No, I won’t. It’s okay.” 

Frankie brushes Grace’s hair away from her eyes, then rests her hand on Grace’s finally-slumped shoulder. At first, it feels like they’re in the room together, settling in. Then Grace’s breathing slows a little, and the weight of her body puts more pressure on Frankie’s thighs, and Frankie’s alone with her. When Grace is fully asleep, Frankie _is_ trapped. She starts to think about how she hasn’t brushed her teeth yet, is still wearing overalls and a t-shirt. 

She rubs her fingers down Grace’s arm, and Grace stirs. “Hey,” Frankie whispers. “Let me get ready for bed. One sec.” Grace burrows more deeply into the pillow, lifts an arm to cling to it. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”

Frankie shifts the pillow—shifts Grace—just enough to slip away. She does a cursory job getting ready, and comes back softened for sleep. Grace has shifted to take up more of the available space on the couch, but when she senses Frankie’s return, she raises her head from the pillow and gives Frankie a long look. It’s accompanied by a slight smile, but her eyes are thoughtful. Frankie turns out the last remaining light, feels Grace roll to make room until her back is pressed against the back of the couch. Frankie doesn't want to pin Grace in place, except when she lies down and Grace is pinned between the cushions and Frankie's body, that is what she wants. She doesn't want Grace to feel claustrophobic, but she does want to keep her, wants her to feel kept on all sides.

“Why'd you come in here tonight?”

Grace doesn’t answer right away, and Frankie wonders if she’s too sleepy to talk. Finally: “I’m never going to have sex again.” 

Frankie stiffens, and her stomach swoops into her throat and back down. “Okay, that came out of nowhere—”

“I mean. I’ll never have that again, and that’s okay because I don’t want it. But my alternative has always been—um. Since Robert and Sol left, we’ve always had each other. But I don’t deserve you either. I don’t deserve this house, and I don’t deserve our friendship.”

“Grace—”

“I’m supposed to be alone. But I’m so tired, and I—I saw your light was on, and I couldn’t make myself stay away.” 

Frankie raises a hand to the dark, finds Grace’s shoulder with it. “Don’t make yourself stay away.” 

She feels Grace swallow. “I’m not,” Grace says.

They fall asleep facing each other, Frankie’s hand their only intentional point of contact. But the couch isn’t wide enough for their bodies not to touch. It takes Frankie a long time to let sleep take her.

In the morning, Frankie wakes up when Grace stirs against her. They’ve shifted in sleep, and Grace lies half on top of her. _You’re a very striking woman_, Frankie wants to say. She wants Grace to remember how it felt the last time they were here. So to speak. But she swings her legs to the floor, stretches her aching back, gives Grace room to unfold herself and force her stiff joints to cooperate. “Thank you,” Grace says. Then she’s out of there. 

—

It’s much easier to feel like a three-dimensional, semi-functional person when you can sleep at night. Every evening after the night they spend in Frankie’s studio, Frankie follows Grace around with tea, which Grace gets used to drinking un-spiked and overly honeyed. Frankie invites her to watch and rewatch old episodes of _Ray Donovan_ and _Longmire_. She pulls her closer on the couch, tickles her arms and dips her fingers into the creases of Grace’s wrists until Grace has to focus really hard to ignore the fluttering in her stomach.

Frankie makes pillow nests in Grace’s bed, and invites herself into the nest to read aloud essays from _BuzzFeed_ and _Medium_ and _The Cut_ so they can “connect with the millennial heart beating across America, or go to sleep trying.” Frankie only falls asleep in Grace’s bed once, felled by a longform piece she really should have broken into chunks. Most nights, she leaves Grace with a forehead kiss and a question: “Why would you feel guilty for coming back?” “Why would you try to punish yourself for doing the best you could?” “Don’t you know I’ll always be here for you? Don’t you get it?” “Why did you think you had to be alone?” 

It’s quite a trick, asking questions like that and leaving Grace alone to answer. Falling asleep is hard, but answering Frankie’s questions is harder. Grace sleeps a lot.

During the days, Grace busies herself with Vybrant, which seems to thrive whenever she and Frankie stick to the content calendar and avoid on-the-fly social media. She rearranges the second shelf of the fridge, stacking Frankie’s blocks of cheese and hummus tubs into a neat pile. She re-homes the Brita pitcher next to the stack, with a taped-on note that reads:

_The second shelf is my favorite!_  
_Love, Brita_

She donates the ancient monogrammed towels. Maybe there will be a Gertrude Prudence Hamilton or a Gina Price Harris among the shoppers at Goodwill La Jolla. Or someone who just doesn’t care. 

Grace is so home-focused that it startles her when Frankie invites her to the movies. “Matinee showing of _Gloria Bell_, then dinner wherever you want. No complaints from me if Del Taco makes the shortlist.” 

It’s been a long time since Grace saw a movie at the theater. She steps in a sticky patch of long ago-spilled Coke in the sloped aisle of the theater, but Frankie doesn’t seem to notice as she leads them to their seats, no placement discussion necessary. Frankie’s the last person Grace went to a movie with, and for once, they had exactly the same perspective on the best seats in the house: the exact middle of the very back row.

They’re the first people in the theater, and when the pre-show commercials end and the previews begin, they’re still alone. When the previews finally end, Grace starts to believe they might actually have the theater to themselves. 

The theater sends them down one final animated roller coaster—waterfalls of soda, popcorn bursting into existence at every turn—before the feature presentation begins. Frankie shifts. Grace thinks she’s reaching for the barrel of Dr. Pepper that rests in the drink holder between them, two straws stuck in the lid even though Grace said she didn’t want any. Frankie grabs Grace’s hand instead. “This has never happened to me,” she says, and Grace knows she means being alone in the theater. “Literally never.”

Grace turns to her and smiles. Frankie’s eyes shine in the flickering lights from the screen. Her lips twitch, like she’s preemptively delighted with herself over something she knows and Grace is going to find out.

“Grace Hanson snorkels naked!” Frankie shouts.

“Shhhhh!” Grace hisses. “I do not.”

“Well, I know that, and you know that, and we’re the only ones around.” Frankie says. “Here,” she adds generously. “You can shout something about me.”

Grace shakes her head dismissively. She can’t think of anything to say.

“Or you could kiss me,” Frankie continues. “Just for fun.” 

Grace raises her eyebrows. “‘Just for fun’?”

Frankie shrugs and lets go of her hand. “Whatevs.”

It’s impossible to focus on the movie. Grace has the vague sense that if she were actually alone, not alone with Frankie, not together with Frankie, she’d enjoy this movie, would have thoughts to think about the story and the acting. But she keeps sensing Frankie looking at her, and she keeps looking back only to just miss Frankie’s eyes. 

Grace wonders if this moment is supposed to make her feel younger. Two straws in the soda, like Norman Rockwell’s about to show up with his easel any minute. Sweaty hands. The back row at the movies. She doesn’t feel younger than she is; Frankie’s never made her feel younger. Spending time with her is nothing like spending time with Nick, feeling the years melt away. Paying for it later. And it’s nothing like spending time with the kids, who’ve tried to age her before she was ready, who tricked her into Walden Villas, who printed her birth certificate on a cake. Frankie doesn’t make her feel like anything but who she is. Like there are better prizes than youth, but no point in wasting away, either.

She steals another glance at Frankie, who looks back this time. Frankie, who makes her feel accurate. 

She leans closer, whispers in Frankie’s ear. “Just for fun.” She kisses Frankie’s ear, lips barely brushing her earlobe. Frankie gasps, and turns to find Grace’s lips. They’re gone, then, off in the only possible direction. The kiss is intense. It lasts for scene after scene. Frankie moves the Dr. Pepper to a different drink holder, and tries to lift the armrest, but it won’t budge. They have to lunge past the padded plastic to get closer to each other. Grace has the sudden, wispy thought that the armrest will bruise her ribs. She pushes harder, grabs the back of Frankie’s neck, brushes Frankie’s hair until Frankie gets the message and pulls at hers. Frankie nibbles on Grace’s lower lip, and Grace’s mouth falls open, letting Frankie in and in. The sound of the movie makes it safe for her to whimper into Frankie’s mouth, and Frankie answers her with cries of her own.

They come to when the credits roll, finding themselves someplace very different than where they were when the movie began. Grace sits with her leg crooked over the armrest, her bad knee cupped in Frankie’s hand. Frankie keeps removing her hand to brush her fingers up Grace’s thigh, then back to the knee again. Her other arm is around Grace’s shoulders, and Grace has reached up so they can hold hands. They’ve taken a break from kissing each other’s mouths, but Grace’s head is tucked against Frankie’s shoulder, and she feels the pressure of Frankie’s lips against the crown of her head. They move away from each other when the lights come up. Any second now, a janitor will come in with a broom and dustpan to look for stray popcorn. 

In the parking lot, the bright sunlight is a shock. They walk to the car like zombies, like members of a new civilization. The skin around Frankie’s lips is bitten pink, and a bit of Grace’s lipstick is smeared in the corners. “Just for fun,” Grace says again, hoping Frankie hears the irony in her voice.

“So chill,” says Frankie. “So extremely chill.” 

“That’s us.” 

“So,” Frankie says once they’re back in Grace’s car and Grace is backing out of the parking space. “What’d you think of the movie?”

Grace is surprised into a bark of laughter. 

“I thought the acting was great,” Frankie continues, laughing too. “And the plot. So easy to follow.” 

“I always try to step into the shoes of the cinematographer, myself,” Grace says. This makes Frankie double over as far as the seatbelt will let her, honking with mirth, and Grace glows. She drives them straight home.

“We’re going upstairs, right?” Frankie asks when they’re back at the house. “It was all I could do to leave you in that pillow fort last night.”

Grace has always thought of forts as having ceilings, but she doesn’t bother to inform Frankie that her inventions are actually nests. Whatever it’s called, it’s a home within home. 

When they make it to Grace’s room, Grace remembers that she undid the pillow fort when she made her bed this morning, half out of habit, half excited for whatever configuration Frankie would create that night. The realization doesn’t slow Frankie down a bit. She pulls down the covers and sits down opposite Grace’s side of the bed. “Come here,” she says. 

Frankie’s shared a lot of fears with Grace over the years. She’s told Grace about how long it took her to decide to sleep with Jacob, how much she worried about sex, the effort it took to physically and mentally and spiritually prepare, how so much of what she loved about Sol was the familiarity, the safety. Grace sits down on the bed next to her. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? It’s not going too fast?”

“Yeah.” Frankie smiles. “I’ve had five years to get ready for today. Or forty-five. But who’s counting?” She looks into the distance for a second, and raises her index finger. “Although,” she continues. “I should pee first. And my mouth feels weird, so I should probably wash my face. And grab some lube.” 

“Lube’s in the nightstand,” Grace says. 

“Cool!” Frankie shouts, and rushes away. 

Grace isn’t hurt. She thinks about falling asleep on Frankie’s couch, how Frankie had sworn Grace wouldn’t trap her but had to get up after a while to put on pajamas anyway. Frankie’s put in the work to convince Grace she isn’t avoiding her; she’s just a person who has to make lots of adjustments.

Grace uses the time to take care of her own version of Frankie’s sudden to-do list, and soon they’re side by side on the bed again. “Are _you_ okay?” Frankie asks. “I just remembered that you told me you didn’t want to have sex again, and this runs very counter to that narrative, but—”

“I was wrong,” Grace says. “I’m okay.” It’s the shortest, simplest answer. Someday, she’ll figure out how to elaborate. She’ll try to explain to Frankie how her definition of wanting has changed. 

The undressing happens fast, the energy from the movie theater returning and bringing with it everything they weren’t allowed to do in the theater. The bed is the opposite of the row of rigid seats, and the early evening sun is a golden counter to the blue light reflecting off the movie screen. Frankie scoops up all the pillows and piles them against the headboard. When Grace lies back, the sheets and pillowcases are soft and cool against her back. Frankie lies down next to her, traces looping patterns against her chest and stomach, nudges her fingertips against her breasts. She leans to kiss her, and Grace wants to cry out, but this quiet and bright room has no soundtrack to muffle the sound. Her cries start out soft, and Frankie murmurs a response to each one. When they can’t control their sounds, can’t stop squirming desperately against each other, Frankie brushes her fingers between Grace’s legs. She stops touching her only long enough to open the lube and coat three of her fingers. She returns to Grace’s opening, feels around her edges, her blissed-out expression replaced with one of concentration. Grace finds Frankie’s fingers, but pulls her hand away the moment she makes contact. “Sorry,” she starts, but Frankie interrupts her.

“No,” she says. “Guide me.” 

Grace guides her, brings Frankie into her, first one finger, then two, as far as she can take them. “Do you want, sort of, in and out?” Frankie asks.

“Yes,” Grace gasps. “I want more.” She swipes her fingertips against Frankie’s wet fingers as Frankie pulls out of her and enters her again, three fingers this time. She touches her own clit, a frantic complement to the rhythm of Frankie’s penetration, feels herself pulse around Frankie, closer and closer. She cries when she comes, the bright contractions almost unbearably good. She doesn’t cry uncontrollably hard: just shakily, just for a minute or so, the release of tears in her throat almost as much of a relief as the release from the orgasm. 

She doesn’t know what Frankie wants, but this delights her rather than scares her. “Tell me,” she whispers. “Show me what you want.” 

Frankie tells her everything. She wants Grace’s mouth on her breasts. She wants Grace’s mouth on her belly. She wants Grace’s fingers everywhere. Wants Grace on top of her, inside of her. Wants to feel her all around her. Grace does everything Frankie asks, does it better and longer and more fervently than Frankie could have ever expected. 

“I think I have to sleep for awhile,” Frankie finally says. They’re already under the covers at this point, Grace spooned around her, the room darkened and ready for lamplight. Frankie rolls onto her back so she can look up at Grace, a frown teasing her brow. “This whole skipping dinner to fuck thing won’t go on, though. You’ve gotten way too good at eating dinner for that to happen.” 

“Promise,” Grace says. She kisses Frankie on the forehead. “We’ll eat a big breakfast.” 

In the morning, Grace wakes up first, her happily sore muscles doing the work of reorienting herself to the night before. She lies quietly for awhile, the warmth of the sheets as good as last evening’s coolness, but she gets restless eventually. She leans towards Frankie, who starts to stir. “I’ll be right back,” she says. She finds her robe and shrugs it on in the hallway. She goes slow on the stairs. 

The G and F mugs are in the still-dirty dishwasher, so Grace handwashes them while the coffee brews. She waits impatiently for the coffeemaker to finish its work. Finally, she heads back upstairs with full mugs. They can drink their coffee while they decide what to make for breakfast. 

When Grace returns, Frankie’s sitting up in bed. “You’re the best,” she says, outstretching her arm to take the G mug. “And don’t you dare keep that robe on when you drink coffee in bed with me.” 

Grace smirks and sets her mug down on the nightstand. She takes a second to pause and enjoy the moment before—before the first sip of coffee, before undressing again, before she reaches for Frankie—the perfect moment at the start of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome all feedback, including constructive criticism. It would mean a lot to me if you would let me know what you think of the story. Thanks so much for reading!


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